‘SHAME’:The former Ukrainian prime minister, who the West says is being politically persecuted, is accused of ordering a US$2.8 million contract killing of a businessman

Photo: AFP

Ukraine’s chief prosecutor accused jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko of ordering the killing of a business rival 16 years ago, dealing a new blow to the former prime minister, who the West says is the victim of a political vendetta.

The announcement came on Friday after a court adjourned a second trial against Tymoshenko for tax evasion and her defense counsel warned her health had declined to a “critical” level.

Tymoshenko is already serving a seven-year jail sentence for abuse of office, meted out in October 2011.

She and Western governments say she is the victim of a witch-hunt by the leadership of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who narrowly beat her in a run-off for the presidency in February 2010.

Political enemies of the 52-year-old politician have indicated for a year that an additional case was building against her over the killing of Yevhen Shcherban, a deputy and businessman who died in a hail of bullets in 1996 as he stepped from a plane.

However, the announcement by state prosecutor Viktor Pshonka that Tymoshenko, a powerful gas trader in the 1990s, had conspired with former Ukrainian prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko in ordering a US$2.8 million “hit” against Shcherban came as a surprise.

If convicted, she could face life imprisonment, Pshonka said in remarks carried by Interfax news agency.

“The material which has been assembled in the pre-trial investigation testifies to the fact that Tymoshenko indeed ordered the killing, together with Lazarenko. Today, investigators went to Tymoshenko to present her with the suspicions about the crime,” Pshonka said, according to Interfax.

The investigation showed that those who had ordered Shcherban’s killing had paid US$2.8 million, he said.

Tymoshenko, the heroine of street protests in 2004 called the “Orange Revolution,” which overturned the old post-Soviet order and doomed Yanukovych’s first bid for the presidency, denies wrongdoing.

The US and the EU have supported Tymoshenko, calling her case an example of selective justice. The EU has shelved agreements on free trade and political association with Ukraine over the issue.

Lazarenko was jailed for nine years in the US for fraud and money laundering. He served his sentence, but is still in detention in the US over immigration issues.

Jailed in October 2011 on charges of abuse of office linked with a 2009 gas deal she brokered with Russia as prime minister, Tymoshenko has spent much time in hospital for back trouble, causing her second trial to be postponed repeatedly.

When the court in the eastern city of Kharkiv announced the latest adjournment on Friday until Feb. 12, a group of her supporters called out: “Shame on the torturers.”

Tymoshenko said on Jan. 8 she was launching a disobedience campaign in protest at measures such as the installation of video cameras in her hospital quarters. She has refused to return to her hospital bed and has been sleeping in a chair in the hospital corridor, her supporters say.